Photography: 40 photographs and Artist’s book.

In 2008, Patricia W. Ribas started photographing Brazilians living in Amsterdam who, due to different reasons, had been undocumented for a certain period of time. During these photo sessions, the conversations would always revolve around the feeling of homesickness and the wish to go back to the motherland.

After having photographed more than fifteen people, Ribas decided to take the negatives to Brazil with her and, as a symbolic gesture, perform an Afro-Brazilian-inspired ritual with them.

While in Brazil, she dipped the negatives in a cocktail of tropical fruits and drinks and let them soak in the mixture for three weeks. After that, she laid them out to dry on printed literary texts.

The results of the ritual are 40 images-15  portraits and 25 abstracts. The artist’s book (only 150 copies) contains 72 pages, it is printed on IBO 1 paper and it includes an essay in English, Dutch, and Portuguese by Sebastian Rapson.

Many thanks to the several generous individual donations to the crowdfunding campaign at Voordekunst, the support of the Mondriaan Fund, and Pictoright Steunfonds.

This project was made possible with the generous support from The Mondriaan Fund.